Mending Nets
★★★☆☆ Engaging
Scottish Storytelling Centre (Venue 30): Fri 1 – Mon 25 Aug 2025
Review by Hugh Simpson
Mending Nets is a gently lyrical but calmly assertive lunchtime entertainment at the Storytelling Centre throughout the Fringe.
The production comes from the Edinburgh-based duo of Scottish storyteller Janis Mackay and Palestinian poet Nada Shawa. Mackay and Shawa (who is a wheelchair user) combine dance, poetry and stories, with themes of identity, displacement, resistance and the building of bridges.
Mending Nets publicity image. Janis Mackay and Nada Shawa. PicL Lucas Chih-Peng Kao
The dance elements elegantly suggest connections between Scotland and Palestine by using music from both cultures, and are performed with grace. Shawa’s poetry is measured yet fierce, dealing with almost unspeakable horrors with great humanity.
Mackay’s storytelling is engaging and intelligently paced. The performers’ costumes, and the simple stage decoration, cleverly evoke a bridge between Scotland and Palestine. Maria Macdonald’s sound and lighting are impeccable.
The production could do with a little more variety in pace, and its structure is somewhat odd. Much of the running time is taken up with one story told by Mackay – the Fish’s Mouth, originally from the Arabian Nights and adapted by Palestinian storyteller Sally Shalabi. This is interspersed with solo dance interludes by Shawa, but the overall effect is that this one story tends to dominate the running time. This makes the whole thing feel lop-sided, and slightly overshadows Shawa’s poems, which bookend the production.
considerable intelligence
This is surely not the intention, and at any rate does not affect the production greatly. The solidarity between Scotland and Palestine that is shown (for example, in combining folk dances from the two countries) is all the more affecting for being done without ceremony and without rancour, in a production of great heart and considerable intelligence.
Running time: One hour (no interval).
Scottish Storytelling Centre (Netherbow Theatre), 43-45 High St, EH1 1SR. (Venue 30).
Friday 1 – Monday 25 August 2025.
Odd dates only: 1.30pm.
Tickets and details: Book here on EdFringe.com.
Scottish Storytelling Centre website: www.scottishstorytellingcentre.com/
ENDS
